thebutterson

The actuator was diagnosed by two local Porsche shops. The explanation of what's happening came from the first. No, I am not 100% sure if an internal component of the engine is bleeding down oil pressure when it sits.

Mike Murphy

My car also rattles/knocks on cold start. A lot of 99s do that. I can almost eliminate the noise if I drive off immediately. The longer you wait after start, the longer it takes for heat and oil pressure to build up. The tensioner are at the end of the oil circuit, so it will take time to get the pressure at the tensioner. I’ll let you know if my tensioner pads are a problem for my code (P1530), but I’m expecting pads that look OK.

Schnell Gelb

In theory leaking lifters may also contribute some noise.

Porschetech3

Glad my suggestion accurately confirmed what the culprit is. Hope you can now get it resolved for a reasonable amount of $$$ ...

PS:Edit: Why would anyone assume that this will not fix the problem??? The 10v residual voltage moved to the other bank after swapping the pins at the DME, and the wiring was already confirmed/tested. Unless you have absolutely no faith in their troubleshooting/testing ability, this should be case closed (except for the actual repair)..

Mike Murphy

They are not going to give me an answer to a question like this, other than ‘it depends on why’ the solenoid didn’t fix it. Their approach all along on this is to pay by the hour for services rendered. They are eating 8 hours already. If this doesn’t fix the issue, then they have 2 misdiagnoses, or else it’s the pads or tensioner itself. None of these results is terribly bad. I would have to pay for the tensioner or pads. They would have to eat a 2nd misdiagnosis.

I get what you are saying, but if it comes to things being held hostage, that’s not good for anyone, but especially not good for them. I have documented this whole process and they are being reasonable.

dporto

^^ That's fair on their part - good luck, I hope it works out for you. You must be dying to drive your car...

Mike Murphy

I appreciate it - thanks. I agree this should resolve it, but sometimes basket case situations just get worse and worse and worse. My car is pretty clean, though, so a I don’t expect surprises, even though they do. They said, you’d be surprised what we find once we open it up. They even suggested the exhaust bolts will likely break when they take the header off. While this is true, I have a suspicion mine won’t. The car just doesn’t have rust or any other issues. We shall see.

Imo000

I really do wish you good luck as seems that you have anything but, with this car.....for now. There is a systematic way to diagnose something like this and if the proper steps are not followed or if they start jumping around and guessing then things like this happen. Doesn't help when the customer starts calling the shots either, I know you meant well but this can confuse even the best mechanics. This is an electrical circuit issue so someone that is really good with circuits should be looking at this using an accurate wiring diagram and and a very good understanding how to check them.

Mike Murphy

Just letting everyone know that my car is fixed. The P1530 code, after all, was a bad solenoid on the bank 1 actuator.

The mechanic said that the tensioner pads looked good, too.

The exhaust bolts all came out fine without breaking - what I consider to be a testament to the previous 18 years of garage queen ownership. No rain, no salt, no winter, driving.

They didn’t think much about the cold start rattle and said that a lot of these cars do that.

The engine purrs like a kitten smoothly now and seems to have full power as before.

Paul Waterloo

Mike-

That is awesome to hear! Too bad it took so long and $$$$. What's this no winter driving? I see you driving around all the time!

Porschetech3

Excellent !! Glad you got it fixed and posted the conclusion, so many threads are left hanging it's good to see some conclusions.. !!

Mike Murphy

Yeah, I kinda feel bad for the people who owned the car and ‘saved it’ by not driving it in the winter, only for me to say forget that noise - I’m driving it in all weather conditions!

Then again, it’s a 911, it’s meant to be driven

Imo000

I'm glad they finally found what they were supposed to find on the first day of diagnosis. Did they leave the old pads in?

Mike Murphy

Yes, they left the tensioner pads alone. I would not have wanted to spend the money on preventative replacement anyway.

To be honest, I know some 911s need to have the tensioner pads replaced on different models over the years, but to me, this is an unacceptable design problem that no engine should have. So I’m glad to hear that mine was just fine. I didn’t ask them to look at the other side or the pads further down into the engine.

Imo000

Every engine ever made with chain pads sooner or later will have a problem as they are a wear item.The way the pads exert pressure, one wears faster than the other so just because the top one looks good doesn't mean the bottom one does too. I can't remember if the top or the bottom wears faster in your case but next time, have a look at both.